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Welcome back to another episode of the Dose the Dental Podcast.
This podcast focuses on sharing the undergraduate and dental school experiences of dental students
and dental professionals through valuable discussions.
Through sharing the journeys and stories of current dental students and dental professionals,
our goals will be find answers or guidance for your own pre-dental journeys.
We have a very special episode today where we held an over South Eastern University College
of Dental Medicine Q&A session in collaboration with students of dentistry.
Joining us are five dental students, D2 Gulzar Palvani, D3's Johnny Russo, Salma Atasi,
and Riley Barnett, as well as D4 Mary Wick.
If you enjoyed the episode, be sure to leave a rating and follow the Dose the Dental Podcast
and students of dentistry on Instagram.
All right.
Hi, everyone.
Thank you for joining us for the pre-dental applications Q&A.
This is going to be very geared toward all the pre-dental students that are in the chat.
So feel free to unmute yourself and ask questions or drop them in the chat and we will ask them
for you.
So we have Nova Southeastern, other ASD at U-Board here.
And if you guys just want to go around and introduce yourself and maybe say what year
you are, and then we can get started.
Hey, everybody.
My name is Mary Wick.
I'm a D4 at Nova.
And I'm Johnny Russo.
I'm a D3 at Nova.
And I'm our ASD president.
I'm Salma.
I'm a D3 at Nova.
And I'm the vice president.
Hi, I'm Gulzar.
I'm a D2.
And I'm the president-elect for ASDA.
All right.
Awesome.
So if anyone has any questions, like I said, feel free to drop them in the chat.
And just to get us started, maybe if you guys want to talk about when you guys submitted
your applications and just the timeline for the whole process.
So when I applied, I did like the soft opening.
I think I opened up in May or something.
I started asking for my letter of recommendation.
I put all my volunteer stuff.
The key thing about your applied is, I think you probably heard it a lot, is always apply
it early.
Apply it early.
That's very...
Wow, that's so weird.
Okay.
Basically, I applied early.
And then I wanted to make sure everything was ready to go.
The one that official thing opened, all I had to do was press submit and put my credit
card in.
That's basically what I did.
I applied really...
I applied twice.
The second time, I didn't really need to apply because I had gotten accepted, but it wasn't
my school of choice.
But as soon as I submitted the applications, I got, oh, hey, we have an open spot for you.
So just because you don't get accepted right away, don't get discouraged.
They accept students all the way up to when they start school, basically.
That was my experience.
Maybe someone else can have a better input.
Yeah.
So for me, I started my application whenever it opened.
I want to say it was June 15th or May 15th or something, but I didn't take my DAT until
August 23rd.
So I don't think that my application was complete until mid-September, which I would not recommend,
but it worked out for me.
So I wanted to apply in June, but I went to apply in June because I was going to take
my DAT in May, but that was the COVID summer.
So I canceled my DAT and they pushed it back to June.
So I did my DAT in June and I applied in July, like, May-July.
I think I had my application complete if I remember correctly, and I took my DAT the
end of August.
And I remember because I had my application ready to go, I was able to just put in my DAT
score and send the application.
And I highly recommend having your application done, like I know sometimes we take longer
to take our test.
So I remember it takes a while for it to get verified and for your transcripts to get approved
and everything.
So it's good to do all that type of backend work and then push your application forward
to get approved and everything.
And that way, as soon as you get your DAT score, you can send it and then that means your application
will be at the top of the pile to get reviewed by different schools.
I do the chat.
I see what do you think is the most important aspect of the application?
Good question.
Definitely having your application done.
Like a lot of times I know like when admissions are looking at applications, they won't even,
sometimes they'll look at it, sometimes they won't, but unless you have a DAT score present,
they won't, they'll just be like, okay, we'll keep it to the side.
Like they'll say, okay, your GPA is good, your volunteer hours are good, but you have
no DAT score, so let me put this to the side.
I would just always try to have everything done when you submit it, but like a lot of
our students, they didn't get their DAT score or they haven't.
As soon as you get that DAT score, submit it right away, even if it's an unofficial
one.
Like I think Johnny, you said you took yours in August or something.
Yeah, like end of August.
Yeah, so but as soon as you got your unofficial score, you send it straight to admissions
people or like you try to update it or something.
That's the most important thing is that because I know a lot of schools, they, if you have
anything below, I think a 20, they won't, they don't like, they like things a book,
20 or above.
I know NSU, they don't like seeing stuff that's like, IT or lower.
Correct me if I run on that, but when I, when I've heard students say, oh yeah, I got like
a 22 or 20 PS or AA, they got interviewed right away.
That's, you don't want to get to a 20 plus and then submit your unofficial score right
away.
Now it's saying like, okay, I submitted my application, but I don't have my DAT score
yet.
As long as you are reporting your progress, as long as you're a concertation, sorry, communication
with them and if you'll say, Hey, I'm taking my DAT this time, I'll give you my unofficial
score right away.
That is very key in this.
I agree with Tori, I thought it is important to communicate.
You want to let, make sure you let the schools know that you're applying to like the same
day that you get your DAT score, you're happy with it and it's the one that you're going
to be using to reach out to them and let them know, Hey, this is the DAT score I got, I'm
in your program.
It's really important to just show face, I guess, virtually.
And I think the question was, you know, asking what's the most important party application,
aside from your scores, your DAT score and your GPA that are going to carry the bulk
of your application.
The only thing that's allowing schools to get to know you on a personal level without
meeting you is your personal statement.
So you want that to be like the most authentic version of yourself and really speaking true
to who you are and making it as unique as possible because there's so many of their
readings so what makes you stand out from somebody else?
Yeah, I think I agree.
I don't think that the DAT is the most important thing.
My DAT score was probably lower than average for my class, to be honest with you.
So I think it really is holistic the way that they look at you.
I think that the thing that's the most important at NOVA especially is they want to know that
you really want to go there and they want a good reason as to why.
I think that at NOVA we really do have kind of a community and admissions tries to focus
on selecting people who they know are going to be happy there and are going to sit in.
As far as your application in general for any school, I would say picking things that
interest you, it doesn't really matter what it is and sticking with it for a significant
amount of time or working your way up leadership-wise is more important than getting a single test
score or being involved in whatever it is, research or something specific.
I don't think there's one answer.
I think it's the kind of person that you are, to be honest with you.
Yeah, and I'll piggyback off of Johnny real quick about showing interest for NOVA.
See, I applied to NOVA and I got waitlisted.
I really wanted to go to NOVA, so I was trying to figure out, do some research on how I can
up my chances on getting off the waitlist to get into NOVA.
A lot of people said to reach out to Dr. Galca, which is the Dean of Admissions.
I just scheduled a meeting with her and just had a nice talk with her and just showed my
interest in that way.
She just said send in a letter of intent and then I sent my letter of intent.
I think it was like a week.
I was hearing back from Dr. Galca saying I was taking off the waitlist and it was handed
to the spot.
So, yeah, just reach out to the school.
If you're in that position as I was, being put on the waitlist here at NOVA, just reach
out to them.
They're really nice and willing to meet you and get in the talk to you.
So, yeah, just reach out and show your interest.
There's a couple questions in the chat.
There's one question that I saw, are you familiar with the general sciences and abstracts?
I actually talked to Calvin about this.
I'm sure you guys know Calvin.
He kind of handles the interview process and application process.
From what I remember from my conversation, it's a one-year program.
If I'm not mistaken, it's the certificate program.
It's a one-year program that NOVA offers and you basically take very similar classes to
the Z1s at the same time.
And I believe if you get 3.6 or above, that guarantees you a spot in the following year
Z1 class, I'm going to keep you at 3.5 or something like that.
It's on the website.
I don't remember what it was exactly, but if you go to 3.5, it guarantees you an interview
for the following year.
So, yeah, that's what that program is.
If you have more questions, you can ask in the chat.
But somebody else asked another question about personal statements.
I don't know if anybody wants to start answering that.
I mean, I get to speak on it a little bit more in terms of personal statement.
I know, I believe the question was asking if we would talk about community service or
shadowing experiences.
I think, obviously, those are vital components of making you a one-on-an applicant.
And there's other portions in the application where you will be talking about community
service and types of shadowing you've done and any other volunteer or general related
activities.
But I think it's really important to use the personal statement to maybe highlight just
a few main ones that really shape who you are, but also try to make this possible to
do more.
So, even if it's not necessarily dental related, you could talk about what route you took to
be fall in love with dentistry or why you want to become a dentist and kind of veer away
from the generic responses.
It's like, I want to help people and I like tees or smiles and things like that because
a lot of people are going to be talking about those components.
So yeah, I think it's really important to make it as unique and as personal as to you.
I didn't really have anything super major to talk about in my personal statement.
So I just talked about shadowing experiences, the mission trips that I went on, and then
towards the end of my personal statement.
I started talking about how I like playing video games and how I played lacrosse in high
school and in college.
And I was able to relate those things that I mentioned and also like playing piano, things
like that.
I talked about manuals, Xperity, and I kind of tried to relate all these things I was
interested in that were not dental related to dental things.
So like lacrosse, I was talking about how you need to be a really good team player and
also a really good leader.
And I related that to being working in an office.
So definitely you'll have to just talk about dental.
You can explore other things, but always try to relate it back to dentistry and find those
little things that relate to dental to dentistry.
Your personal statement, it's basically your trend and tell the inter, like mission people,
hey, this is who I am.
This is basically why I want to be a dentist.
This is like, this is what brought me here.
They know what you are on paper as far as academics, community service.
Like when someone was saying like, you don't have to, it's great that you have dental in
there, but if you have like your hand skills, like what makes you feel like this is the
field that you are meant to be in.
Because anyone would say, oh yeah, I want to be a dentist because I'm, I love to esteem.
Anyone can say that.
And stay something that makes you stand out because at the end of the day, the only person
that knows you is you and you want to make sure that mission people see you for who you
are.
And then when they invite you to interview, you can expand about what you meant in your
personal statement.
One of the questions in the chat was talking about if you're a foreigner question, are
you saying like you're a foreign dentist or like you're just a student that's coming
into the country?
Like are you, because if you're a foreign dentist or certain things have to go through
to get your license in America, so like at Nova, they have an international dentist program
where like you start as a D2, I think, right?
And then, but that's in the Clearwater campus.
And then you do three years and then you have your dentist life in America.
But it, that's for if you're like a dentist in somewhere else.
And then you still have to take the same exams and stuff like that.
The average that score at Nova, I believe it's like they will only look at your application
really, but it's like a 20 or above, right?
I think that's what that was the average, like anything below a 20, they, it's not really,
they don't, they'll look at you, but they won't nine or 10 times a 20 or above is what
they really want.
Yeah, I think someone's asking if it's like academic average to total science.
It's just your both your academic average and your total science should be a 20 or higher.
There are certain categories that aren't as important, like reading comprehension and
that like you want them to be high, but they don't necessarily need to be, you know, 20
or 21 or something like that.
But if I have a couple of bad grades, however, I have a overall good GPA.
Okay, so if you have a good GPA solid, you have a good dad score solid.
You have a lot of experience of the dental assistant, patient coordinator, even better.
It shows that you're not just someone that's good academically, you're going out there
and you're put yourself in the field to make sure you, this is what you want to do.
Like my background is I was a dental assistant before dental school.
I'm a current outreach coordinator for a mobile dental bus.
I was not just someone that was studying it.
I need to be involved in it.
I didn't have my undergrad GPA wasn't the greatest, but I'm able to master's program.
I did a masters of public health.
A lot of other students do masters of biomedical sciences.
If you have a low GPA, that's okay.
You still have an opportunity to get accepted down.
Like you just have to like think about, okay, I have to accept that a low GPA.
Let me go to a master's program.
Let me get a good dad score.
Let me show them my background in public health or like something I'm doing outside
of school.
I'm an assistant here.
I do stuff on the side.
I do a lot of community service.
Like you can make up for a bad GPA by being involved in other programs, other things,
showing that you're active in your community, so you're active in a dental office.
Like don't take a, I have a horrible GPA.
I'm one and done.
You can still make up for it.
I think in terms of the grades, I personally did a masters in biomedical science or applying
dental school.
So my take on your GPA and the grades that are being bad is it depends on what classes
you're not doing well in.
Like I mean, it's okay if you have a, you know, it's great overall good and strong GPA,
but what courses you didn't necessarily form as well in.
And you may kind of take that into account, at least that was my take from applying to
once and then not getting in and then applying again with my asters.
I think tomorrow I'm just, go ahead.
No, yeah, sorry.
There's like a lot of questions in chat.
I wanted to answer like one of the easier ones is everyone live off campus.
There's no on campus grad housing at Nova, so everybody live off campus for the most
part.
There's people that live in apartments right outside of Nova.
There's people that live in Miami and they can view just depends on the person, but for
the most part, well, everybody does resolve campus.
Yeah, personally, I live right across the street from the school.
So I watch school every day, which is awesome.
What makes Nova unique?
Okay, that's a very cool question.
So I'll start off one thing.
It's in Thunny Saps South Florida.
We don't have snow.
I was born and raised in Miami, Florida.
I have never seen snow in my life.
I hope never to go to see snow.
So if you are born, born and raised in Miami or Florida and you've heard snow, Nova's your
place.
What I like about Nova is you have your mental health relief in a sense.
Like at the beach down the street, it's my hometown.
So I always look at like when I was applying out, like I was thinking about, okay, do I
really want to be far away from family?
Do I want to be far away from an area that I grew up in?
Do I want to go up to North and freeze my butt off?
Like these are all the things I had to think about when I was replying.
If you're fortunate enough to get accepted to multiple schools, think about like, okay,
do I want to spend the much money traveling back and forth across country to see my family?
Like it's commitment.
You have to think about that stuff.
So if you are born in Florida and you want to stay in Florida, if you want to practice
in Florida, there's three great schools that you can apply to.
What makes Nova unique also is that all the specialties are in-house.
So if my patient needs an endo, all I got to do is go upstairs and say, hey, can you
come and do a consult with this one patient?
And then if a patient needs a wisdom tube extraction, it'll impact the wisdom tube.
I go down the street, go down the hall.
This oral surgery, it's nice having everything in-house.
Another thing that makes Nova really unique is that they're always improving on their
technology.
Like we're getting a new CBCT, we're getting like every, all of our clinic teams are going
to have a scanner.
It's nice that Nova's always shining the newest technology, but every Dallas school
has something to offer.
It depends on where you want to end up, essentially.
Like I didn't, I can only talk about Nova's experience, that's where I go to.
Everyone had a different experience at their Dallas school.
So it depends on what you're looking for.
And if you want to travel up North, if you want to stay up North, or if you want to come
down to Sunday, it's not a spec, not top today, sorry.
Like South Florida, great.
It just depends on what school fits your needs and your wants, basically.
Yeah, I don't really know how other dental schools operate, but I believe like one unique
thing about Nova is they do a pretty good job your first year of exposing you to dentistry,
like you know, in SimLab.
I believe it's like the end of sometime in your first semester, you're picking up a hand
piece and starting to drill.
They get you in the clinic, you're shadowing and getting exposed to the clinic pretty early
on.
You're doing cleanings on each other, hygiene and stuff like that.
So I think they do a pretty good job at taking away, because you're going to be doing a lot
of didactic courses your first year, but they still do a good job of fitting in the clinical
side of dentistry your first year.
So I think that's a pretty big deal for me for how unique Nova is.
But like I said, I'm not sure how other dental schools work their first year.
I think my favorite part about Nova and something that drew me to wanting to go here is the
community.
It's like everyone's like super personal.
I've never wanted to help each other out.
It's like one big family.
I mean, there's always going to be a little competition, but nothing that is like deteriorating
here from doing one year classes.
And I don't know, everyone's really supportive.
And even the faculty is super approachable and super sweet.
Yeah.
So I was going to answer the question in the chat, how long is the school year?
Do you want to year end August to May?
So it's just the fall and spring semester and then D to D three year it's so full summer.
So May and then to the next May, D three years, May to the next May and then D four
years, May until next May.
That makes sense.
It's what Roy said.
For me, what makes Nova unique is also like what Goldard said, it literally feels like
a family and I feel like that's so cliche and everybody says that I'm on Nova.
But as a D one, I felt super comfortable talking to D fours and asking D fours for help.
And I feel like when you're going through a time of a ton of transition and a lot of
stress and just like a really big lifestyle change, it's intimidating to talk to older
people and ask for help.
But I always felt super, super comfortable asking for help.
And you're definitely going to need help with a huge transition.
But that's one thing about Nova that I really loved.
And also what Riley said, you start in the clinic or D one year assisting and shadowing
and then D three years and cleaning and oral exams or oral cancer screening on patients
and so I really liked when you get really early clinical exposure at Nova.
And also the weather is really nice.
And I'm from Miami, so you're like 10 minutes away from Fort Lauderdale or you're a minute
away from Miami.
Like it's amazing.
I think some people were asking about manual dexterity.
So is there a way you can highlight that in your application and what activities can
you do to highlight that or to improve upon that before starting dental school?
I'll answer it.
I think Johnny, you're good at this.
Okay, I'll answer this one because this was something big in my interview that Dr. Galca
still talks about to the applicants who are coming through.
I talked about shaping surfboards, which was kind of different than I think what she expected
or what you would consider to be like an aspect of manual dexterity.
But it's only that I love and I still think about it all the time.
Like now that I've been through over two years of dental school, I would shape a wavehead
or surfboard.
But I think if you're doing something that doesn't feel like it's something that's naturally
interesting to you, it's probably not worth it.
And you can turn your interests into something that can be considered practicing manual dexterity
pretty easily.
I agree with Johnny.
I also, so that summer before dental school, I honestly tried to do everything to practice
my manual dexterity.
I remember I bought an Amogwa Nolilus Sutra kit and I tried learning how to do that through
YouTube.
I just tried a bunch of different things.
I naturally always played lacrosse.
I naturally played video games and played piano, but I personally think that nothing will compare
to holding a drill and how that feels.
So yeah, I don't know.
I feel like the very specific way when you guys learn of holding a drill and drilling
into a piece of mouth and using the instrument for creaming, nothing could really compare
to that.
So yeah, that's my opinion.
I agree with Salba.
I feel like nothing you can do to prepare for holding a drill for the first time.
It's challenging, but I think something that I really value about Nolilus Sutra is that
from the beginning, literally the first day of D1 year, you're in the Sim Lab doing wax
ups and then from there working on teeth and they can really get you in the Sim Lab early.
You're getting a lot of hands on the skills.
And I think one of the questions earlier was asking if we fell like we were prepared going
into clinic.
I personally can't speak on that yet, but our dental meetings and D4s can say they too
are prepared, but so far I feel like we're getting a lot of experience.
But it was great, entering.
So I was the COVID year, 2020, my first year at DOS school, so all our courses were online,
but we did have our Sim Lab sessions in person and instead of having them every day, we only
had them once or twice a week.
So going to D2, it was a weird transition, but what a lot of us did was we had a motor
at home where we had to use our hand pieces at home, so if I had a break from studying,
I would just practice at home.
When we went out of COVID, I was always in Sim Lab.
At the end of the day, no one can really prepare you well enough and you have to prepare yourself.
Once you get taught the basic skills, it's up to you to really put the time in to put
the work in.
When I started clinic, I felt really prepared just because in my head, I knew what I had
to do.
I put the time in Sim Lab, but then again, no one overnight is for an adentist.
When you get your first patient in the chair, you're going to be like, oh shit, sorry, don't
me the curse, but you get what I'm saying, no one overnight is an adentist.
Everyone's going to make a mistake.
It's what you learn from your mistakes that make you a better provider.
I do think Nova prepares you well in a sense of your hand skills, your oral med knowledge.
I felt very prepared going into clinic and I still feel prepared as a d-bore.
I do a lot of mission trips of Nova.
We just got back from Puerto Rico and I don't speak Spanish, so we had a translator.
Based on what the translation was, I was able to see what's going on.
Nova prepares you in that sense.
I see what medications you're taking.
I see what you're saying, what the communication barrier, but what the translator was saying
to me, okay, let's see what I can do for you.
I do feel like Nova does prepare you well in that sense.
I completely agree.
From the perspective of somebody who started clinic three or four weeks ago, I would say
that hand skills and knowledge that we've learned in all of our classes, the didactic
side of dentistry, I feel completely prepared.
That's the least of my worries.
It's more just learning how to deal with people, how to schedule patients, the way that the
clinic operates.
Those are the things that you have to worry about when you get into clinic, not the stuff
that you're supposed to learn in the past two years.
I've felt incredibly prepared.
There is a question about asking what Nova focuses on most.
I don't know if you meant in terms of your initial application or your interview, but
I'll speak on the interview portion.
After you get your offer to get an interview, then when you're in that meeting, it's very
one-on-one, very personal.
It's just like a conversation.
They just want to see if you are the same person that you talked about in your application
and that you can socialize.
It's just very conversational, very chill and not intimidating at all.
I'm not going to lie, Nova's interview is the most chillest interview you'll ever experience.
I went in there totally oblivious to what's going on.
The question that I was asked in my interview was, because all my resume, I put in my graphic
design artist and I lead outreaches, I organize mission trips.
More than being whole, I say, that's our guest.
Well, guess who's doing all the merchandise designs, who's planning all the mission trips.
I bit follow-up on all the signals that I send in my interview.
They told me to it.
Just say whatever you say in your interview, hold it true.
That's the best thing.
Be who you are, be true to yourself and you can never go wrong with that.
Yeah, I'm going to ask you another question.
I don't know.
You want to add a song?
No, no, you go ahead.
I don't think personally in my interview, they didn't ask me anything out of the ordinary,
tricky, trying to catch me off guard.
It was literally a conversation.
We sat down and we just talked about my interests.
Then she asked me a couple of questions about my application.
I did some research in undergrad.
She was just asking me some questions about that, but nothing that's going to throw you
off.
Just know your application as best as possible and you should be good.
I don't think they're going to, they're not there to trick you or anything.
They just want to see who you are as a person, honestly.
And what they're not, that's all no, sorry.
One more thing on the interview is if you go into it knowing what you want to talk about,
I think that's really beneficial, especially at Nova.
They more sit back and let you talk about whatever you want to talk about.
So if you can fill up that time and give them a good idea of what kind of a person you are,
then they're going to be less likely to start asking you questions than maybe are something
that you're not as confident about or something that you don't want to answer.
So it kind of goes along with what Riley said with knowing your application.
Know your strengths, highlight those things, and then talk about yourself as a person,
things that they can't read on the paper.
One of the questions I was asked during the interview, and I totally blanked and I wished
I didn't, was there was Dr. Gautka, she asked me, do you have any questions for me?
Looking back, if I could tell my pre-dental student self, this is the question I would
ask any during an interview.
How is your patient cool for your students?
Like, am I going to have to find my own patient?
Am I going to always have a chair?
Questions like that are very, I would ask those questions because you never know without
school, do they give us the patients or do we have to absolutely look for the patients?
I see all these questions like, oh, how did they ask you?
But one of the things I wish I knew is what can I ask them?
Because remember, you want to go to their school and they want you as a student, but
you got to realize if you get accepted to multiple schools, why do I want to go to your
school?
Or if this is the only school you're going to get accepted, is this really the school
I want to go to?
And I'm going to put a lot of money to this school, do I really want to go to this?
Do I really want to jump into this much stuff?
Like, why am I gay and too?
Kind of thing.
I want to thank all of our NSU e-board members for coming on and answering all these questions.
You guys did an absolutely phenomenal job and just banged out so many important topics.
So thank you guys so much for everything you've done.
The goal of what we want to do here is we are going to be launching the pre-dental mentor
map.
It's something coming out hopefully soon, which is going to be a free service for pre-dental
students to ask questions just like you guys did today of willing dental mentors like our
wonderful e-board here about school specific questions.
So you guys can sign up when we launch this hopefully soon.
If anybody has any questions, I can see some of the e-boards throwing their contact information
in there.
If you guys are comfortable with that, please do so you can continue the conversation.
But thank you so much.
Keep an eye out as soon as the dentistry.
We're going to be launching that map soon.
So all of these questions, not just about NOVA, but all schools can be answered hopefully
soon.
So thank you guys so much for coming.
We really appreciate it.
Hopefully the next one can be long in 40 minutes because this was really important stuff.
Thank you for having us.
Good luck everyone.
We'll see you guys next time.